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The subway doors open and Siobhan is just a flash of violet turning around the pillar and up the subway steps at a sprint. It is 7 am at the Nanpu Bridge subway stop andour esteemed Hamilton psysiotherapast,Enoch Ho, warned us that the bus would wait for no one. Wearing my smll backpack and carrying the fod bag, I ran to follow her tqking the steps two at a time for three flights and then puffing up the Everest on escalqtors they favour here. Siobhan was nowhere in sight. Would she catch the bus for us before it left the " " at 7 am? No sign of Vonnie. Hot and out of breath, I finally jogged into the station and threw my bag and knapsack on the nsecuirty conveyor. There was Sio gesturing wildly and and smiling. She had caught the bus! I said "Huangshan" in what I knew was the corret tonality to the woman on duty. She pointed to te right. However, off to the left, was purple-jackeed Siobhan, smiling broadly.

Enoch Ho was wrong. One again, our Chinese hosts had extended a special courtesy to us and held the bus for four minutes, just for us. We got on.

I haad awoken that morning at 3:30 am because I can't sleep well when I have an early deadline, like Nanpu Bridge way across town at 7 am sharp. The Le Tour Travellers' Rest Youth Hostel was very quiet. Well, it always almost always quiet even though it is in the centre of town near the French Concession, that elegant part of town that the colonial French regime carved out of Chinese territory in Shanghai. You see, it's set back from the main streets in tiny long alleyways only big enough for pedestrians, bicycles, and scooters to navigate. It is an old brick building with a cool cavernous interior and interiior window wells where vines climb to roof garden above. You can buy breakfast or a light dinner complete with a 600 ml bottle of fine Tsingtsao local beer (a relic of the german occupation) The hostel was once the main towel-making factory in China. It is now the very popular pick of places to stay in Shanghai by our travellers' bible, the Lonely Planet. (The equivalent of $44 per night Cdn for two for a twin room with ensuite bathroom, minus the discount for Siobhan's international Student Card.)

Despite the best laid palns laid by mice and me, everything went wrong at the last moment, including the taxi driver who couldn't find the right metro station. We were consequently setting off late and sat in dread on the subway car watching the second hand of my watch tick off inexorably fast while the subway stations went by inexorably slowly.

The bus to Huangshan Mountain is air-conditioned and quite nice but without a toilet. It is only half-filled aand all (I can hardly type) thhhe Chinese are at the frront there is a good reason for that. The ride at the back here is very very bumpyand there is a big bench at the back which is calling out to me saying, nptime, naptime, naptime... We are racing down a divided six lane, toll highway, with cameras and flashing lights, something along the lines of the 407 back at hommme, but bumpppier.

However, before the nap I thinkI will take a minute to desribe the oubntryside outside of the Shanghai megalopolois. At first, there were forlorn little clumps of farmouses surrounded by a bit of greenery hemmed in atevery side by new housing developments and factories. You just know those frms are not gong to be there much longer.........

Further out of town, the devlopments are spead out much further aprt and one sees proper farms, not the one big Canaian-style farmhouse, surrounded by 10 0 acres but little clumps of ten to twelve, two and three story whitewashed or gray concrete houses with what appear to be tile roofves )but could be metal sheathing) surrounded by maybe twenty to forty acres of land, all netly tilled right up to the roadway. Lots of canls and irrgiataion ditches. Ponds are extremely populaar. Everything quick and green. Many farmz hav long lines of plstic greenhouses and even long rows of mounds of whatappears to be rotting compost under wraps. I suppose tese farms feed the 3 0 m inhabitants of Shanghai. Tree nurseies, fis farms, orchasrds... Cedar trees seem to be very common along fence lines. nice efect! crops of

indeterminate nature due to early pleantings and speed of bus. Thois is the coastal loland.

Occasionally, we passsa townson the outskirts of which there is hevy asnd light industry, bg mokestacks. Factories along the higway liker to display their wares out frontunder big billboards, for instanxe, front end loade5rs, and a kind of cherry-picker/crane with a big spool of cable at the top about 15 meetres tall, the likes of which I hsven't seen bvefore in Canada.

Siobhan is in thee seeat behind me eating dried kiwi fruit aand readingthe book Atonement whle boncing up and down. How can shee do it?

This is Day 4 in China for us and still we have not aseen the sky, even wayouthere outside of Shanmghai. It is very hard to type while the laptop jumps around in my ap. Is this then the future og mankind as the Tird World flexes ts industril muscles - to live under a pepetual curtain of smog?

Soon we climb through alow range of pretty, woodedd hills where the road goes right through a number of them in long dark tunnels. We stop at a spic and span Sinopec service centre which is more pleasant that the ones along the 401 (though all of the latter are gradually being rreplaced with pleasant, eco-friendly centres). Lots of clean commodes for the men but only squatting toilets for women.

The ervicentre is close toh a town where ten cranes are working awy on ten new highrise buildings. Now, in Hamilton, when there is even one crne erecting ne highrise bilding, there is a lot of b uzz. as we pass through, it's obious that This town is expereiencing building boom. I counted a further 25 crnes in action at the other end of town!

Past the city, the road descends again into marshay lowlands. Are these rectngular ponds actually rice paddies? Ineed, they are! This is confirmed by the sighting of man working with a water bffalo in a lush terrace of rice paddies in varrius stages of cultirtion! So neat!

The terrian rises again and soon we are in the city of Huangshan. It is not the place where we limb the Shan (mountain), we are told by a Chinese man, who doesn't speak a word of English but offers to act as our Mountain gguide. (End of bad typing, I hope. Thank you for your patience.)

The bus continues. After a further short ride, we are in Tangkou, at the base of the Mountain. It is difficult to figure out where to pick up the shuttle bus to the Mountain (15 yuan ). We wander aimlessly about asking a few people in English and Chinese (usung the dictionary on Sio's iphone app) where the bloody shuttle is. Finally, two young Chinese women, Ling and Wu, one of whom speaks some English takes pity on us (Ling) and adopts us. It turns out they too are going to the Mountain. They themselves have some trouble finding the shuttle bus but eventually lead us to the shuttle bus station, hidden up a hill behind the main drag, where we can buy tickets

Regrettably, we have to part with our new friends who have taken a real shine to Siobhan because it's too late in the day for them to start the climb. Unlike us, they have no reservation at the top. I left them with two Canada pins, souvenirs that my Mandarin teacher, Ms. Liang Jun of Mohawk College, insisted adamantly that we bring.

So, off we go again by bus to the Mountain.

From the bus, the views are spectacular climbing the winding ascent to the cable car at Yungu. New hotels are being carved out of the side of the mountain as we depart the bottom of this 40 km long mountain. Bamboo and pine trees line the route. The driver atually speeeds up along the hairpin 240 degree turns to the delight of the paseners who are pressed into the corners of their sets by the centrifugal effect of the quick turns. Oohs! and ahhs! are hears from the Chinese passengers (We are the only foreigners around today.) as we glmpse spectaculr vistas of the mountain range.

A few minutes later, we are at the cable car dropoff, where the eastern steps are located. There are clean washrooms here, though only the men have commodes. It's easy to see why the commodes are spotless. A sign in English above each demands: "Wash the toilet after use!"

Siobhan and I buy a coffee and a map, pay half the climber's fee because I am a senior and she has the International Student Card (issued free from the student union at the Unviersity of Guelph) A few before pictures at the circular entrance gate and off we go!

The steps are wide and high (about 8", just as Enoch had described them) and in good shape. They are made of what seems to be the same local yellow granite as the Mountain. How did they get there? From the Mountain itself? Who carried these big slabs up or down the 7 km climb to/from the top?

We say Ni Hao! to everyone we meet, not a single foreigner. People smile broadly at us and respond with a smile and a Ni hao or hello. Porters using wide wooden neck yokes balance enormous bundled loads of what appears to be dirty laundry and great big empty propane tanks as they negotiate the descent. Periodically, they stop to rest and mop their brows using a big bamboo stick to prop up their yokes. They have enormous protruding neck muscles. Is human labour still so cheap here that it is less costly to use porters to bring down these burdens than the cable car? At least we see no porters going up with loads.

It's a very good thing that the path is long and offers many landings and horizontal walks. If it were a basically vertical ascent like Hamilton's Wenworth Street steps, I simply wouldn't make it.

Siobhan keeps exclaiming about the beautiful views, the many waterfalls, the several man-made reflecting pools, the birds, the crooked pines. I have to keep remeinding her of the warning signs along the way in English: "Please do not Enjoy (sic) the views While (sic) walking!" and "Don't flirt momkeys by feedine(sic)" (We saw no monkeys to flirt with.)

But we saw some beautiful organge birds which Siobhan was persistent enough to photograph.

Along the way, we came upon three young Chinese women taking pictures at a waterfall. One of them, Helen, insisted we join them for a Kodak moment. They fussed like crazy over Siobhan and her curly hair. Many various photographic arrangments of people were accomplished by clambouring over rocks and taking turns as photographer. Finally, Facebook and e-mail addresses were exchanged and I gave Helen a Canada ballpoint pen on a lanyard as a souvenir.

Many of these young Chinese who speak English (Did you know that in China, more people are learning English than every other country of the world put together?) like to meet and talk to us to practise their English skills. I think they are also attracted to western things that were forbidden so long (for good reason) and because they look at fashion ads of skinny western models on the subways, western icons on TV, and read about western things in even the official Chinese newspapers. Something like moths attracted to a flame (with the consequent dangers.)

I am starting to sweat and the pack is getting heavy. I am so glad I changed into shorts at the bottom!The bag of dried fruits and nuts I am carrying is also gaining weight somehow, even though we are nibbling from it. However, Siobhan is very patient and waits for me to take frequent breaks for sips of water, a few raisins, a walk about on level ground.

Suddenly, the sun comes out and magically the uniformity of the forest disolves and each tree becomes distinct in shape in colour. Magnificent! The sides of the mountain are carpeted in a dizzying variety of pines that stand out from the colums of rock and veined cliffs in a glorious whirl of shapes and sizes depicted in the classical Chinese landsape paintings of this very spot we saw a few days ago in the Shanghai Museum.

And look! Blue sky at last!

Our spirits rise as we do.

I have taken two ten minute breaks at the end of each hour so far and thrown off the pack. It's supposed to be a two and a half hour climb. But now we stop even more frequently to gawk at views of the peaks and the vistas down the long valley we have climbed. I am also getting more tired and hot and have to shed my undershirt and give the food pack to Siobhan. Besides us, there are very few climbers going up, except a group of very well- equipped Chinese (Japanese?) backpackers with tripods and telephoto lenses and a young couple. Alnost all the local people must have taken the cable car up. Some of those walk down the steps. I am so-o-o-o glad we decided to do this climb in the springtime and not in the hot and sticky summer!

Each flight of stairs is now becoming a challenge in itself. I am having second thoughts about bringing along the several pounds of Brendan's laptop and cords on which this missive is being written. (I hope you appreciate the effort, dear reader!) I am even having second thoughts about not taking the cable car like 99% of the locals. Despite weeks of training on the Hamilton Mountain steps, I have to pause, on almost every landing, to walk about so that my calf muscles don't cramp. Siobhan explains in clinical terms that by dong so I am giving the muscles in my legs the opportunity to pass lactic acid to my liver where it is being recycled throughout my body. Comforting, NOT!

I am now puffing like a steam engine while Siobhan is still skipping up the stairs ahead of me. Last lap: a sign indicates we have covered 6.5 km of the 7 km hike. But they have saved the hardest for last. Nearly vertical staircases of a hundred or more stairs at a tme. The cable car is passing closely overhead. The wind is picking up. I am getting cold. I have to put on my t-shirt and turtleneck sweater. My hands are too cold to do up the buttons of my shirt. Siobhan is getting impatient with me. I continue up very slowly. My sacroiliac joint is getting sore and my fingers numb. I ask Siobhan to take my pack. She grabs my pack along with hers and the food bag and scampers up the last few flights of stairs two at a time.

She is looking down from the terrace at the top shouting words of encouragement as I approach the last staircase. This calls for a song! I break out into "I love to go a wandering... valderi/valdera" and practically fall onto the terrace at the top, glad to be finished, glad to still be alive. Where is my gold medal that I saw some people wearing on a red neck ribbon below? Surely the oldest person to make the climb today deserves one!

Another Kodak moment with the other climbers at the top, each of us photographng the other groups. Thankfully our batteries die and we have an excuse to get out of the cold wind whipping along the summit. It's about 4 degrees Celsius up here.

A quick visit to the tourist toilets and we are off singing along the boardwalk to our hotel. Whoa! Is this building, that looks like an embassy, our hotel? Can't be! But it is.

We feel out of place in this 4 star establishment. It also has a 4 star restaurant with uniformed staff and chairs and tables draped in pink cloth right to the floor. We are seated at a small table by the huge picture window overlooking a side of the mountain. The buffet costs $25 a person. We are on a budget. Fortunately, Siobhan scans the lengthy menu to find a couple of cheaper dishes with lots of veggies and dumplings and pancakes, which we can afford. The food tastes wonderful. I drink at least three litres of tea and soup. We polish it all off.

The service is not so great. The uniformed waitresses are all gathered by a pillar to one side chatting to each other and giggling and not paying attention to their guests. When we pay at the bar, the women cashier seems to be doing us a favour by taking our money. I guess we don't meet the dress code coming right off the climb in hiking books and sneakers. She doesn't want to take my MC but relents and after two tries it works.

Unfortunately, we have been relegated to the "villas" across the road from the baronial main building. The villas are long rows of attached cottages. Ours has twin beds, a TV, lots of hot water, tile floors , and wooden panelling. BUT no heat, the tiles are cold, and the walls are paper thin: We can hear the neighbour's TV as if it were on in our own room. Oh well! We are both too sleepy to care. We leave the hair dryer on high and put on the warm, big, red parkas and slippers supplied by the establshment to stay warm. We take turns having a shower and hit the hay.

Another memorable day in China!